How to practise properly (and why repetition isn't enough)

Playing through is not practising

Playing a piece from start to finish is a performance, not a practice session. It feels productive because you hear the whole thing, but you spend most of the time on the bars you can already play and only a few seconds on the bars you can't.

Real practice means finding the hardest bar, isolating it, and working on that until it stops being the hardest bar. It is slower, less fun for the first five minutes, and dramatically more effective.

The three-step loop

Every practice session on a tricky passage should follow the same loop.

• Isolate — find the smallest chunk that's going wrong. Usually two beats, not two bars.
• Slow down — play it at a tempo where you get it right every single time. If you can't play it right slowly, you can't play it right fast.
• Build up — nudge the metronome up by 4 or 5 bpm at a time. If a mistake creeps back in, drop back down.

Finish on something you love

Always end a session by playing something you enjoy and can already play well. It makes the guitar something you want to come back to tomorrow, which matters more than any single session.